Old technology for education. In the VocabularySpellingCity office, we collect vintage educational technology & enjoy viewing previous "revolutions" in edtech. Visitors get to visit the museum. Have retired film strips, educ'l records, or whatever? We might give them a home. Did you use these technologies, were they revolutionary? Comment on the site or tweet to me: @VSpellCityMayor PS. I'm looking for a classic old teacher gradebook, have one?

Saturday, January 12, 2013

The Polaroid Instant Camera

I'm of a certain age (mid50's!) and so I remember using Polaroids back when they were very high tech. The excitement was that you could take a picture and look at it right away!

Back then, the image would slowly appear over around 90 seconds (as best I can remember) after you yanked out the paper from the camera. It came with a four tube that had a spond in it drenched in some sort of "fixed" which we would rub over the picture once it had finished developing. It felt very technical, high tech, and exciting.

Edward Land started the camera reportedly inspired by his daughter who .."wanted to see the picture NOW!" The camera and company's highlights were in the 1960-80s when it was lauded as an example of American technological and entrepreneurial prowess. Wikipedia summarizes it as:

Polaroid Corporation is an American-based international consumer electronics and eyewear company, originally founded in 1937 by Edwin H. Land. It is most famous for its instant film cameras, which reached the market in 1948, and continued to be the company's flagship product line until the February 2008 decision to cease all production in favor of digital photography products.

1 comment:

I still have my Polaroid camera that I bought as a teenager. I remember the film was for about 10 pictures and it was quite pricey. I also still have one of those bulky camcorders. At the time though, it was considered compact. Maybe I should dust it off and bring it in.